@mxlusine, mother, where are thy teeth...?
[ SLIP-UP ] - As it turns out, a lot of people at the monastery make for great body doubles in the dark. What do you do when you slap a friend on the back only for you to find out when they turn around that it's not your friend at all?
"What a troublesome child you still are, Marni," she tuts, though not unkindly—not with the vitriol that ought to be there, and not with the apathy that had once settled only to bleed itself dry. Maybe she had lost it, somewhere it Gradlon; maybe it had burned away with the rest of her, too heavy to bring with her overseas. "Did I not tell you that if you were going to attend, you should at least..." ...dance, Zephia thinks, but this is not Marni. In fact, now that she actually looks a little closer, this is certainly a small girl, but not a small enough girl. She is not her girl, dressed ridiculously for a ridiculous event that should have made her ridiculous heart soar. "...Well. You'll accept my apologies, I hope," Zephia says, withdrawing her hand from the girl's shoulder. "In the dark, you looked almost like someone I knew. Perhaps she isn't as special as I'd thought."
Marni?
Nanna turned at once, pale skirts whispering softly around her ankles as lanternlight caught across the pearls threaded through her dress. For a fleeting instant, confusion crossed her features—quick and bright as a bird’s wingbeat—before the woman’s correction followed close behind.
And then, despite herself—
“...Not Citrinne?” she asked lightly, smile blooming with almost dangerous ease, as though they were discussing mistaken identities over tea rather than ghosts of people who lingered too vividly in memory.
Her head tilted just slightly, studying Zephia now with clearer attention. The withdrawal of the woman’s hand did not go unnoticed, nor did the peculiar softness folded into her apology. It sat strangely beside the sharpness of her words, like velvet stitched over a blade.
“…Well,” Nanna continued gently, rescuing the moment before it could sour into embarrassment, “For your troublesome child, do take this.” Orchids, fashioned with endearment.
A soft laugh escaped her then, delicate enough to leave room for retreat if unwanted.
“…I think,” she added after a beat, eyes warm with quiet curiosity, “that people rarely mistake others for those who meant nothing to them.”
"Hahaha!" Good-hearted, with a hand perched on her chest to hold onto it like a dove, Nanna hummed to the beat of affection. "Best of luck finding her…! My own mother had turned over the whole desert for her children, once."
